Single Serve Tea

February 16, 2015

While we weren’t aware of the Numi brand before this review, we were a bit surprised to see how much popularity it had apparently gained in certain parts of USA & Canada over the past several years without our knowledge. It seems almost every week we’re hearing of a new brand making its way to the single serve world in one form or another, so we set about trying to find more info about the brand itself and these new Real Cups. While we couldn’t find much mention of the Real Cups except for this press release from early last year (the company’s own website makes no mention of them at all), we did find out that Numi got its start in Oakland California back in 1999 when brother (Ahmed Rahim) & sister (Reem Rahim) decided to start up their own tea company after noticing little difference in consistency & selection within competing tea brands already on the market.

Ahmed had already owned & operated tea houses abroad while Reem had been studying art in Northern California. They wanted to create a company that would encompass both their passions and so Numi Organic Tea was born. The hallmark of the company has since become known as super-premium, organic and Fair Trade Certified teas and herbal teas made with 100% real ingredients. They also make a point to ensure no natural flavorings or perfumes are used to flavor the teas… all the flavor comes from the natural ingredients themselves, nothing else.

January 7, 2015

From the company that does Brooklyn Beans Roastery coffee K-Cups comes Prospect Tea. These single serve tea K-Cups come in a variety of flavors, and we’ve been sampling many of them over the past few days. Prospect teas feature gourmet blends not found in other single serve cups like Darjeeling, Chai, White tea, Oolong, and more.

There are a ton of familiar and not so familiar flavors for any single serve tea situation:

Brooklyn Breakfast - Type: Black Ceylon

Duke of Earl Grey - Type: Earl Grey

Golden Dragon - Type: Yunnan Gold

Graffiti Burst - Type: Pomegranate Infused White Tea

Himalayan Spring - Type: Oolong

White Bengal - Type: Black

Chamomile Chill - Type: Chamomile

Lemon Taxi - Type: Lemon

Peppermint Heights - Type: Peppermint

Vanilla Chai - Type: Black

Green Power - Type: Green

Prospect Park Decaf - Type: Green

Variety - Type: Choose your adventure

Prospect Tea Single Serve Tea K-Cups will work in all K-Cup Brewers but NOT Keurig 2.0. All flavors are also available now.

March 4, 2014

In what seems to be a never-ending quest for Keurig to secure just about every major coffee & tea brand on the market, they’ve managed to secure yet another one this year and it’s a big one. We’re talking about the partnership between Keurig and Lipton Teas to produce Liption Tea K-Cups. We heard news that Tetley would release K-Cups around the same time as their T-Disc releases, but that never materialized, so on a rare trip to a local Wal-Mart (we can already hear some Tar-jay fans getting nauseated at the thought) we couldn’t resist to pick-up a box of the only Lipton flavor they had available… Lipton Soothe Smooth Green Tea K-Cups.

October 9, 2013

Red Rose is now offering French Vanilla and Hazelnut Energy Tea K-Cups for Keurig K-Cup Brewers. The energy/good for you hot drink craze continues with these two offerings and we'll see if we can get some to review.

From AB:

"While shopping at Shaw’s today in Bangor Maine, I came across two new offering from Red Rose Tea. They are now offering two new KCups. French Vanilla Energy Tea and Hazelnut Energy Tea."

These two premium black teas have an extra boost and are both naturally flavored. We've yet to find out what the energy part of the tea is. Maybe it's just really spunky? :-)

July 1, 2013

Single serve tea has been around perhaps a bit longer than single serve coffee, and it's no surprise there's an app for it. Tea 2.0 is an iPhone app that allows you to research tea, and then save various blends you create with brew settings. You can then keep notes on the teas you've brewed, and share then with pictures on Twitter, Facebook and various other social media sites.

Seems like if they have this amazing app for tea - why don't we have one for single serve coffee?

July 19, 2011

The T-EASY concept from designer Dr. Hakan Gursu for Designnobis makes loose leaf and flower tea on the go possible. We've seen lots of these different tea on the go concepts, but this tiny little contraption can make up to eight cups worth of tea. To make a cup of tea you empty the contents of the tea from the plastic container in the handle, and then place it in the screened metal steeper. Single serve tea has never been cooler on the go than T-Easy, so let's hope they make this product soon.

February 17, 2011

The Tovolo Teago puts a new spin on "taking tea!" because with the Teago you can enjoy tea anywhere you go one cup at a time. Teago is a reusable 2-5 steep air tight press that draws in hot water and expresses seamlessly for perfect tea in your single serve cup every time.

September 27, 2010

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. is pleased to announce it will package and distribute a new green tea in a K-Cup portion pack made with paper. Celestial Seasonings Honey Lemon Ginseng Green Tea Paper K-Cups are the first beverages to be offered in the new paper-based K-Cup, which is designed for use in the Keurig Single-Cup Brewing System. The K-Cup contains authentic green tea and delicate Bai Mu Dan white tea - one of the rarest and youngest of teas - creating a smooth, balanced cup with a pleasantly mild flavor.

We can't be more excited to try out the new paper K-Cups, and also being a big Green Tea drinkers here at Single Serve Coffee (hmmm... maybe we need to say Single Serve Tea) makes this announcement even more special. What we really like here is the commitment shown by Green Mountain to get recyclable K-Cups in their product mix, and this should lead the way for recyclable coffee K-Cups in the future.

The announcement also states they are looking at even more ways to reduce the materials needed in all of their portion pack materials, which we believe will result in innovative packaging for on shelf, and more K-Cups shipped in bulk. All of these eco-friendly ideas are great steps in making Green Mountain even greener in the future.

September 15, 2010

Our quest to try every new “Brew Over Ice” K-Cup continues today with our review of Celestial Seasonings Southern Sweet Perfect Iced Tea K-Cups. These K-Cups combine traditional black tea and dump on a generous serving of cane sugar to add a touch of the South to this drink since after all; sweet tea did originate from the Southern states (as is described via this interesting Wikipedia entry). As a matter of fact, the first thing you’ll probably notice is the weight of these K-Cups… they are PACKED with cane sugar and weigh a few grams more than some other flavors in the lineup.

Upon brewing, mild aromas of black tea appear for a few minutes although overall, there’s not much of a scent present in the finished cup once all is said and done. We were expecting a bit more of a traditional orange pekoe scent but it’s always hard to get the same aromas as the hot version when you’re making iced tea. As a result, we’ll score this as average.

August 27, 2010

We're going to feature a bunch of the brew over iced K-Cups over the next week, and we kick things off with the Celestial Seasonings Sweet Peach Iced Tea K-Cups and notice a light peach aroma filling our nose as the hot liquid melts over the ice. This aroma quickly becomes muted after the drink cools down a bit.

We didn't really notice much acidity as the ice cuts down on it somewhat. Things were smooth overall and there was barely any aftertaste. The thing which threw us off a bit was the initial punch to the face of bitter flavoring... we couldn't quite figure out what caused it. The peach flavoring? The cane sugar? (unlikely) or perhaps it was the hibiscus? Once we got accustomed, we started noticing more of the natural peach flavoring hiding below the light sweetness of the cane sugar. The longer we sipped on the drink, the more peach notes started coming through. A flavor score of 5 thankfully got changed to an 8 as a result.

January 29, 2009

Currently only available in the UK and Europe, the design is very similar to Breville's single serve coffee maker in tone. The Breville Hot Cup won't make single serve coffee, but it will make single serve tea very easy. If you have a current single serve coffee maker most of the models will dispense hot water, so this may not be for you, but it might be for that tea drinker you know.

July 11, 2007

It's summer and currently we're enjoying the new Chai Tea Latte T Discs for Tassimo, but if you have a Keurig, you need not miss out on the Chai Tea craze. We recommend getting some of the Timothy's World Coffee Chai Tea, K-Cups for Keurig Brewers and perhaps an Aeroccino to make the latte part.

AO: Personally, I will never give Keurig or Green Mountain another read moreManuel : I'm on the second machine and it is doing the read moreAO: I just happened to find the following on a coffee read moreMelanie McReynolds: Keurig just lost another customer. They had a great concept read moreAO: I would be curious to see how much Kona coffee read more